What does Bush and parts of the US not understand about Amtrak and the national passenger rail?

[daveklepper]

Compared to the real subsidies, not the Mineta false accounting that leaves out, for example, the cost of highway police in most cases, and again I say ommission of real estate taxes is a hidden subsidy, the real subsidies for highway and air transportation, and don't forget the highly subsidized regional airports that make private and charter operations possible, $2Billion a year for Amtrak is peanuts. What does the USA get?

1. Highway congestion relief in corridors.

2. Better standby protection for emergencies.

3. Most elderly and handicapped having access to most of the nation

4. Eventually, after the repairs are made, a showcase for foreign and domestic tourism.

5. Pride in the nations heritage, since railroads unified the continent.

6. Eventually, some relief of rail capacity chokepoints to benefit both Amtrak and freight.

7. Better mobility in many points with choices, not just one service or none in many communities.

I think this is a bargain. Mark, what do you think?

If anyone agrees, make a manefesto of it and send it to NARP!

As an example of choices and mobility, let us look at the Phila-NY market.

One can use Acela or Metroliner on Amtrak and spend close to $100. The fastest service. About 65 or 70 minutes.

One can use the SEPTA R9(?) trian to the Airport, fly to Newark or LaGuagria, and use a variety of public or taxi transportation to Manhattan. Also about $100 and twice the total time. But there are those who LOVE flying. So they will take the plane. (in nice weather) Excuse me, counting security except on a low-travel day, four times the time!

One can use a regional Amtrak express with not much sacrifice in time and still have the advantage of a snack bar and comfortable seats, 80 - 95 minutes, about $45 depending on date?

One can use a SEPTA Trenton local with a same-platform change at Trenton to a NJTransit train, about $36, about 120 minutes. Sparten and no food service.

The through intercity bus does about as well, may shortening it to 90 minuts if there is not heavy traffic.

My choice: PATCO Franklin Bridge (great views) train to the Camden Transportation Center. The New Jersey Transit River Line (diesel interurban car, great scenery) upstairs on the street to Trenton on the street, using the right of way of the USA's third oldest railroad still seeing CSX freight service (Camden and Amboy). Then upstairs to an NJT or Amtrak train ot NY. About $24 total, and what a terrific railfan experience!

Variations on the theme: You can by your train ticket to Newark instead of NY, save a few bucks, and use PATH from Newark to New York, either the World Trade Center Station, or Christopher St, 9th St., 14th St. 23rd St. or 32nd St. and 6th Avenue.

In the past there was also direct service from Reading Terminal to Newark Penn Station via West Trenton, and the missing passenger leg from West Trenton to Newark may be restored soon.

Those are public transportation choices.

[Anonymous]

Jock,
What about BNSF, Amtrak, and FedEx getting together on a LD LA/Chic passenger/express train? Slide on containers similar to those used on FedEx planes could be carried in maybe all-door "baggage cars" (rather than intermodal which FedEx doesn't do). There would be major incentive to stay to schedule and high-value revenue to help make the train financially successful. Government mail contracts supported many trains years ago. Not thinking FedEx traffic would be handled at intermediate stops.

[jockellis]

G'day, Y'all:
On a personal note, Mark, Keep your head down!
We seem to have gotten off the track, so to speak, but in between the fighting, there have been some good points raised. AMTRAk will have a hard time "going 24 hours" because the freight railroads are so busy sending cars full of Chinese goods east from the left coast and empties back from the east so they can fill up again. At the present amount of track, where would they put more passenger trains without the staggering expense of new, dedicated, passenger routes? And that would really jack up the costs. Of course, the per passenger mile cost would go down if more trains were run, and in some places, that has been proved true (as stated above). But it would be hard to do that on a nation-wide basis. Remember, railroads in the 1800s learned somethig churches had known or centuries; people won't fill up the last 20 percent of a train or a sanctuary. so they have to build 25 percent more capacity than they use. (The 25 percent being one fourth more than the first 80 percent)
Personally, I think Pres. Bush sent this up as a trial balloon to see what would happen. The states became fighting mad because they don't have the money and the collective politicians will be looking for new jobs if they raise gas taxes to pay for it. Even pennies which people really wouldn't miss will get politicians beaten in November elections because people hate being taxed.
One thing I wi***he recent Trains Mag BNSF Transcon article had included - probably in sidebar form - is whether that heavy duty rail line could be used for passenger service and the 80 or so trains a day still use it. I doubt if BNSF would want to share, but who knows? When costs associated with getting merchandise from China get to the point where it not economically feasible to buy them over there but produce them here, BNSF might want another tenant.

Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A

[jeaton]

I, for one, never said I wanted to take money off of highways and spend it on trains. We should have more money going for both. Of course, the problem is that we don't want to spend money on anything unless we are the direct beneficiaries of that expenditure. Either cheap or greedy, I can't decide which.

Thanks for the history of railroad passenger travel. That is probably useful for somebody that was born yesterday, but since I have been around since just before WW II, for me it is just old news. If it is just old news for you also, you might have a sense of how much the world has changed in the last half century of so. At least you might know how much has changed in the thirty some years since Amtrak was started. If not, let me assure you that the travel needs of the American public has under gone a dramatic increase. Barring something that causes a totally unexpected decline in population growth, the our need for expanded transportation facilities will continue to grow. We will be a very sorry place if we spend all of the money on highways.

I continue to see the statement on this forum that Americans are so much in love with their cars that they would never want to use any other form of transportation. That may have been almost universally true in the decade or so following WW II, but I'll bet big bucks that a survey now would show that most people would say a car is something the need, not just something they want. Big difference.

WMD's? None have been found and the search has been given up. Tough spot for the President, because now not so many are buying into the falling sky pleas.

Jay Eaton

[Paul Milenkovic]

The political reality is that Amtrak runs, primarily, a NY-Philly commuter operation with Boston and D.C. extensions plus this amorphous other known as the long-distance trains. The NY-Philly run is where Amtrak runs some fraction of a highway lane of traffic in each direction.

With the long, steady decline in rail passenger travel from the 1920's forward, with a brief increase in traffic during WW-II when you had to ride the train and a lot of people hated the service and the crowds and were ever so eager to get back into cars when the war was over, the powers that be decided that if there was one place where rail had a role and had a chance, it was in the Northeast Corridor -- Megalopolis as it was called. That was the one place the U.S. had European-style population densities to support European-style train service. The original Alan Cripe Turbo Train and Pennsy Metroliner were part of a U.S. D.O.T. demonstration that was supposed to spark a revival of passenger rail. The demonstration concentrated on enhanced corridor service, one with electric wires, the other without.

Part of the concept was that you needed population density to support the high fixed costs of rail, and the Northeast was the place. The term Megalopolis was to convey the idea that with the population of the suburbs, the swath from Boston to D.C. was becoming one continuous suburb. Part of what was overlooked that as the city populations headed out to the suburbs in the post WW-II housing boom, even though this was happening in the Northeast (along with the rest of the country), that population was becoming more dispersed so the questions was whether there are really that many end-to-end downtown NY to downtown DC trips.

The other thing that happened was the Penn Central disaster, tied into passenger rail because Pennsy, NY, and the sick child New Haven they were required to absorb as part of the merger, had some of the highest passenger operating losses (yeah, yeah, railroad accounting, but it was a factor). Following Penn Central was Conrail, and following Conrail was CSX and to a lesser extent NS with the NEC as a passenger-only railroad going to Amtrak.

The NEC is the only part Amtrak operates a railroad, and this came about almost by accident in the long, tortured aftermath of Penn Central. Everywhere else, Amtrak runs a kind of tour operation at the sufference of the host freight railroads. Back in 1971, Amtrak was created to relieve those freight railroads of their common carrier duties to carry passengers in exchange for whatever goodies they received back in the 19th century. Since then, there has been wholesale transportation deregulation of these freight railroads, who trimmed their physical plant to the cost-efficient minimum to support their freight operations, and the idea that the freight railroads have some kind of duty to run Amtrak trains on time to discharge their common carrier responsibility to carry passengers as part of the formation of Amtrak has gotten forgotten.

So you have two Amtraks, the NY-Philly commuter operation plus extensions, along with this tour operation running on the freight railroads -- kind of like passenger riverboats darting in and out among the barge tows. The NY-Philly operation is this black hole of government-funded capital expenditures, and the passenger riverboats actually makes a slim profit if it weren't for Amtrak's tortured accounting (those evil railroads weren't the only people to play such gains) -- they make a profit because they ride on rivers where someone else is paying for the locks and dams, but they get stuck behind those barge tows getting in and out of the locks, but I guess the riverboat clientel is on the riverboat for the entertainment or for health reasons, so they don't much care that they are hours upon hours late at times.

Maybe we have it all backwards with respect to corridors. Maybe corridors are just money pits and the amount of highway congestion relief is all in people's minds (hey, they say that if you build a new highway, it will only fill up -- maybe if you subsidize a railroad, the extra highway capacity also gets used up so there is no congestion relief either). Maybe the place for trains is the long-distance passenger train -- kind of like we now have cruise ships but the days of the Queens and the USS United States plying the seas between Manhattan and Southhampton are gone. Maybe these cruise ship trains can share the rails with freight and the people on these trains aren't in a hurry to get there or they would book airline flights and put up with the TSA. Maybe the profit margins are thin and they need government support, and the government funds national parks -- these trains are like rolling national parks.

But people still think the NEC is where trains belong, but if it gets a national subsidy, there has to be long distance trains because the Iowa farmer (you all from Iowa don't get mad at me) will be unhappy paying for those city folks to have their trains.

So President Bush decides to speak truth to all of the lazy assumptions and says, "Here is 300 mil to run that NY-Philly commuter line, and if the rest of you want trains, go to your state legislatures." Oh the humanity, and of course "Bush lied" (You all want to know that story? It turns out that the Germans had this Iraqi defector Tailor of Panama guy on ice who was feeding them the info on the WMD, which the Germans passed on to U.S. but the U.S. guys couldn't interview this dude. I got this story from a right-wing source called CNN. It is much easier to say "Bush lied" than get into, the dare I say, nuances of the situation.)

Back to trains. We Midwesterners are promoting the Midwest Regional High Speed Rail Initiative. It looks really great on paper and we are eager to get it. But then we hear of how many billions were spend on the NEC getting it up to the level of service we would like to have (110 MPH trains with some grad crossings -- the 150 MPH Acela is a stunt on a short section of track for marketing purposes), and we hear of the Acela woes, and if anyone wanted to stop us in our tracks from getting the Midwest Initiative, they could point to the NEC and assign an extrapolated price figure to what we are trying to do.

A person could take a conspiratorial view to all of this. Trains were done in by GM and the concrete lobby. Look how much subsidy highways get and how little trains get. Yes highways get a lot of subsidy -- try taking the lion's share of that subsidy out of highways, putting them into trains, and see how popular you are. Oh, but when gas gets to $3, $6, or even $10/gallon, people will want their trains. No they won't, they will want hybrid cars.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

Elderly and handicapped people cannot cross the continent by air or by bus and many could not afford to hire a driver and comfortable limousine. They can tolerate a bus or pay a taxi for a two hour ride to the closest Amtrak statioh, or maybe even four hours.

Regarding open access, that is a different matter than the fact that highway and air do not pay real estate taxes and rail does. Don't confuse the two issues. Again, you talk about monopolistic freight pricing, but there is always highway and air freight transportation, so the monopoly isn't complete. I still maintain that this amounts to a vitual subsidy for the non-rail intercity public transportation.

Dave,

Under the current Amtrak routes, there are plenty of places out West, both small and large, which do not have access to Amtrak, and for which it would take more than a few hours ride by bus or car to access the nearest Amtrak station. Most Amtrak routes run east-west, what if the elderly or handicapped person in question needs to go north-south or NE-SW/NW-SE? How do the elderly in Boise get to Phoenix via Amtrak? How do the elderly in Billings get to El Paso via Amtrak? The point is, there just isn't enough saturation of point to point rail lines, let alone enough populace to support passenger rail between these types of cities, that they absolutely have to travel by non-rail modes to get to these places. If so, and if such trips are okay for these people, why not the same for those who may currently have the Amtrak alternative?

On the tax issue, because highways and airports are "owned" by cities, counties, and states, are you suggesting these entities tax themselves? Isn't that just taking money out of one pocket and putting it in another? Or are you suggesting what I have suggested, e.g. finding the true degree of user fees vs subsidies for these other modal infrastructures, and applying the same to railroads regardless of ownership? Like I've said before, if you are going to "equalize" the relative tax support structure among highways/airports/etc and railroads, then you better "equalize" the issue of rights of access among the various modes as well.

[Anonymous]

why does this have to go partisan? Mark is to be commended as a hero for going over to Iraq. Was the Intel bad for the war? Yes. But it was bad for all of us, France never once said they didn't have WMD's. Russia, Brittain, Germany all agreed that they thought that they had them. So why is it just the US intel that was wrong? Also, I think the stratagy was brilliant, they knew that the terrorists would then come in to fight them, and that is what they wanted. Why do you think that they haven't really closed the borders? It is much easier and better to draw out the enemy and kill them with your military, than to try and fight them at home. You may not agree with the war, and that is your right, but keep in mind under Saddam, he was financing the terrorist in Israel, as well as others. Plus because of his stealing of the money for food in the UN oil for Food program, he was killing a ton of people over there.
Brad

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by morseman

To: LIMITEDCLEAR
Re your last response to Jim, "How was Canada. Jim???"
Recently an American soldier sought assylum in Canada,
He was an enlisted soldier with a great record in Afghanastan.
Hr yold the Canadian jdge he would be severely punished
if returned to the U.S. as he didn't want to go to Iraq.

The judge didn't buy his story and he is to be deported
sending a message to any other enlisted Americans
seeking assylum in Canada.

This judgement was generally well received by Canadians.

MM-

Thanks. I wasn't trying to cast aspersions on Canada today, but refer to the Vietnam era practice of some seeking to avoid Selective Service in the U.S. in connnection with Jim. I realize that Canada has effectively repudiated the former practice of accepting U.S. deserters.

LC

[daveklepper]

Elderly and handicapped people cannot cross the continent by air or by bus and many could not afford to hire a driver and comfortable limousine. They can tolerate a bus or pay a taxi for a two hour ride to the closest Amtrak statioh, or maybe even four hours.

Regarding open access, that is a different matter than the fact that highway and air do not pay real estate taxes and rail does. Don't confuse the two issues. Again, you talk about monopolistic freight pricing, but there is always highway and air freight transportation, so the monopoly isn't complete. I still maintain that this amounts to a vitual subsidy for the non-rail intercity public transportation.

[morseman]

To: LIMITEDCLEAR
Re your last response to Jim, "How was Canada. Jim???"
Recently an American soldier sought assylum in Canada,
He was an enlisted soldier with a great record in Afghanastan.
Hr yold the Canadian jdge he would be severely punished
if returned to the U.S. as he didn't want to go to Iraq.

The judge didn't buy his story and he is to be deported
sending a message to any other enlisted Americans
seeking assylum in Canada.

This judgement was generally well received by Canadians.

[Anonymous]

Yawn, just another NeoCon obsessed with Clinton. _!_

Paul (Obviously a Dinosaur)

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by paugust

I see this as a Quid Pro Quo. John McCain sold out to the Bushies, gave them his support. He would not do that without getting something in return. McCain has wanted Amtrak dead for years. Now, suddenly, he gets his way. Coincidence? Not in bush-world.

Bush has lied about everything else he's ever done. This is no different.

and to Mark, I hope you come home safe from Iraq. I don't necessarily admire what you are doing, but I do respect it. But you lost me with the democracy ain't cheap canard.

Since when do Trains = Democracy?

Paul

Paul,

Your insistence that Bush lied is the main reason your type is going the way of the dinosaur. You are either so stupid that you don't know the difference between a lie (e.g. "I never had sex with that women, Ms. Lewinsky.") and acting on poor international intelligence (as virtually all the Western nations concluded that Saddam had WMD's), or you are so disingenuously partisan that you must scrape the very bottom of the political barrel with your flaky tongue just to slake your embedded hatred of the foundations of this nation's.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SP9033

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill

QUOTE: Originally posted by amtrak-tom

$10 Billion for the Iraqi railroad......that's all I've got to say.

$10 billion! That would be wonderful news to the Iraq Republic Railway. The cash input it's actually getting is but 2.32% of that number, which is a drop in the bucket of the total need. Democracy isn't cheap.

mwh

I find it interesting, that Mark Hemphill a reporter of railroad news, backer of stock held railroading, is now the American overlord to a state run railroad. Its interesting to note, this current national administration has picked Mark.

Its also interesting to note, there are funds for Iraq's natioal railroad, and Mark's boss zeros out Amtrak.

Mark, again I'm asking you, just when was it that you sold out? This is the second time I've asked this question of YOU.

Jim - Lawton, NV MP236

Hey Jim -

WHO SOLD OUT? Mark or YOU. You are the only one on the board I hear denigrading those serving their country in a foreign war. Is there a Commie flag on the wall of your garage???

I'll just bet that your LTL buddies, many of whom are Vets themselves would LOVE to know the kind of scum they have to work with...

I asked you once if you have served, now I know the answer to that question. How was Canada, Jim???

YOU DISGUST ME.

LC

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SP9033

The Mark said this:

"But I can't actually introduce you to Mr. Zoubaa. You see, he and his driver were asassinated by insurgents this morning as they drove to work. The Iraqi railwaymen I work with every day are pretty shook up"

Geuss he'd still been alive if we would not have gone to war with the third world that had nothing to do with 911

So, just when did you sell out?

Jim!

Mark is absolutely right. You are an idiot who needs professional help. Perhaps your union medical plan will even pay for it. Get lost LOSER.

LC

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

I find two important points missing from this thread and they are also missing from any consideration so far by Bush and Mineta:

1. There are USA citizens who need Amtrak to be full citizens. They are the elderly and handicapped who cannot drive and who cannot fly but, in my opinion, are still entitled to have access to the entire country.

2. Airlines and interstate highways do not pay real estate taxes. Railroads do, and fees from Amtrak in part do pay part of those taxes. If all the land occupied by airports and interstate highways (only interstates, not any other highways) were evalautated for real estate taxes on realistic terms by local communities and counties, the total yearly tax bill would probably top $10billion, not $2Billion.

Dave,

You bring up two good points. Allow me to play devil's advocate...

1. What of the elderly and handicapped who currently not served by Amtrak? What about those elderly and handicapped who don't live anywhere near a railroad that could even support passenger rail? Conversely, if these elderly and handicapped can get around via highway oriented travel options, would not the same work for those who may currently utilize Amtrak?

2. It is the rail industry's choice to keep the ROW's under private closed access ownership. Anytime they want, they can give up that proprietary right to the public, and private/public consortium, or a tax-exempt private utility. Of course, if they do that then the transporter service providers must compete for each and every customer. It is the belief of rail industry leaders that the ability to extract monopolistic pricing from captive shippers under the property taxed closed access ROW system is preferable to having to compete for those same customers under a tax exempted open access ROW system. As everyone on this forum knows, I advocate the open access system, as it is my belief that profits would be enhanced by participating in a market based competitive situation via expanding customer volume, rather than limiting customers to those that can be exploited (and giving up the rest of the potential marktet to truckers, barge lines, and pipelines).

That being said, it is still imperative to discuss why we need a government run passenger rail service if all other modes only support privately run passenger services (albeit with varying degrees of public support for infrastructure). If it is concluded by the powers that be that we need to keep the current proprietary closed access rail system while forcing these same entities to accept a government run passenger service, why wouldn't it be perferable to have the government transfer that right of access to any potential private passenger service provider who wants to take a shot at trying to make money on passenger trains? Maybe it's true that running LD passenger trains with 1930's logistics will not result in any private sector imcome potential, but then again who knows what could come about under private enterprise if those entities focus on the more logical applications of passenger rail service, namely the concepts of overnight trains and/or tourist trains.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by paugust

I see this as a Quid Pro Quo. John McCain sold out to the Bushies, gave them his support. He would not do that without getting something in return. McCain has wanted Amtrak dead for years. Now, suddenly, he gets his way. Coincidence? Not in bush-world.

Bush has lied about everything else he's ever done. This is no different.

and to Mark, I hope you come home safe from Iraq. I don't necessarily admire what you are doing, but I do respect it. But you lost me with the democracy ain't cheap canard.

Since when do Trains = Democracy?

Paul

Paul,

Your insistence that Bush lied is the main reason your type is going the way of the dinosaur. You are either so stupid that you don't know the difference between a lie (e.g. "I never had sex with that women, Ms. Lewinsky.") and acting on poor international intelligence (as virtually all the Western nations concluded that Saddam had WMD's), or you are so disingenuously partisan that you must scrape the very bottom of the political barrel with your flaky tongue just to slake your embedded hatred of the foundations of this nation's.

[Anonymous]

I see this as a Quid Pro Quo. John McCain sold out to the Bushies, gave them his support. He would not do that without getting something in return. McCain has wanted Amtrak dead for years. Now, suddenly, he gets his way. Coincidence? Not in bush-world.

Bush has lied about everything else he's ever done. This is no different.

and to Mark, I hope you come home safe from Iraq. I don't necessarily admire what you are doing, but I do respect it. But you lost me with the democracy ain't cheap canard.

Since when do Trains = Democracy?

Paul

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SP9033

The Mark said this:

"But I can't actually introduce you to Mr. Zoubaa. You see, he and his driver were asassinated by insurgents this morning as they drove to work. The Iraqi railwaymen I work with every day are pretty shook up"

Geuss he'd still been alive if we would not have gone to war with the third world that had nothing to do with 911

So, just when did you sell out?

Jim!

Somedays the deployments, the time away from home...just isn't worth it realizing the drivel some folks spout using the freedoms that we protect.

Jim ...how about a nice steaming hot cup of SHUT THE &*^% UP.

[jeaton]

SP9033

It appears that it is way beyond your ability to comprehend why thousands of people like Mark Hemphill have decided to voluntarily leave family, travel halfway around the world to tackle extroadinarily difficult problems while having their lives on the line. But I will try.

As much as anybody, I believe the decision to make pre-emptive strike against Iraq was made by people so narrow minded and egotistical that they could not even consider that the action they advocated could produce anything but a good outcome. At the least it could be said that the action was ill-advised, but I think that the resulting loss of human life, both military and innocent civilian, and the enormous cost to the American public makes the action an outragously immoral act.

As much as I and and people here and around the world think it was wrong, the war happened. In my mind we have a moral obligation to fix what we helped destroy. That in itself would be enough justification, but it is also clear to me that if we were to pull away and take our money with us, we would leave ourselves in far greater danger than we were before the war. Hemphill and the people working with him are trying to make do with a very small proportion of the $300 billion total cost of the war in a sincere effort to help the Iraqis rebuild and give them a chance to move on to more peacful lives.

I don't like the fact that we now have to spend the kind of money going to the war effort. I would like to see that kind of money and more spent on things like transportation infrastructure, schools, healthcare and many other things even much more needed than Amtrak. Given the popularity of tax cuts, it is pretty clear that the voting Americans will try anything to get out of paying for things that are needed for our welfare. For some, appearantly such as you, no government spending is to be allowed unless it is made directly to US citizens.

If you think that you, or for that matter, any other person in the world can avoid any interact with all the other political entities and people of the world, you had better start looking for a very deep hole in a very uninhabital part of the world.

In fact if you want to leave now, I'll pay to fill up the tank in your vehicle,

Jay Eaton

[eastside]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SP9033

The Mark said this:
...
So, just when did you sell out?

A moral man acts as his conscience dictates, not someone else's. In my mind, "selling out" is when you compromise your conscience. I see no evidence of this. On the contrary, from everything that I've read that MWH has written, he's shown himself to be a man of integrity, directness, and conscience. My impression is that he took the job believing he's sincerely doing a service for the beleaguered people of Iraq, at considerable risk to his own life and obviously not for the money. I wouldn't go there for any amount of money. He should be applauded instead.

[Anonymous]

The Mark said this:

"But I can't actually introduce you to Mr. Zoubaa. You see, he and his driver were asassinated by insurgents this morning as they drove to work. The Iraqi railwaymen I work with every day are pretty shook up"

Geuss he'd still been alive if we would not have gone to war with the third world that had nothing to do with 911

So, just when did you sell out?

Jim!

[Anonymous]

I was wrong.

Jim

[Anonymous]

Jim

[Anonymous]

jim

[daveklepper]

I find two important points missing from this thread and they are also missing from any consideration so far by Bush and Mineta:

1. There are USA citizens who need Amtrak to be full citizens. They are the elderly and handicapped who cannot drive and who cannot fly but, in my opinion, are still entitled to have access to the entire country.

2. Airlines and interstate highways do not pay real estate taxes. Railroads do, and fees from Amtrak in part do pay part of those taxes. If all the land occupied by airports and interstate highways (only interstates, not any other highways) were evalautated for real estate taxes on realistic terms by local communities and counties, the total yearly tax bill would probably top $10billion, not $2Billion.

[PNWRMNM]

Mark,

It is soo much more fun to make wild claims though. Keep up the good work.

Mac

[Anonymous]

"Whatcha gonna do when the gas runs out?]"

Most Amtrak trains run on diesel fuel (oil).
What? We can't electrify?

If the number of trains were trippled, there l would not be triple the ridership which would decrease their energy efficiency energy. How many passengers does it take to make a train more efficient than an auto?
When service was increased between Milwaukee and Chicago, the ridership in general went up. I saw it.


If we can get the wackos to allow nuclear power plants and get the distribution infrastructure set up autos can be made to run fine on hydrogen (we need electricity to get the hydrogen) and make the electric car viable for around town use even with
no improvement in range.

If we could get the whacko power companies to maintain their nuclear plants responsibly, no one would argue. I don't want to become a glow-in-the-dark statue."

I don't live where you live. Air France had no direct service to South Bend, 40 miles away. The airport itself was a hell to endure."

He couldn't catch a local flight from O'Hare? or catch a bus? As I said trips don't start and end at the airport or train station. If every rail line that existed in 1950 still existed and evey line had passenger service on it, the train still couldn't match the auto for speed and covenience in most of the country. In most of the county it couldn't match the airplane either. Time is money.

Time is money. that's getting old. To some but not all. Especially the majority of folks who use their cars long distance instead of the airlines. Just what my brother wanted to do. Schlep 6 bags from one terminal to the other in an airport the size of my town just to wait for another flight, go back in the air to land at South Bend for a car trip. then thee's people that live around here that want to fly to New York. They get into their car around 4pm, drive to O'hare and get a room for the night, and take a morning flight out. By the time they get to New York they could have taken the Broadway. Do you jog to work?



"Well, now you get my point about frequency and service. Two locals, one express."

Yeah, but the express doesn't stop and the locals schedule is all wrong for my needs. Besides they take at least 3- hour station to station. What is a 2-1/2 hour door to door auto trip then takes over 4 hours. My trip isn't station to station

An assumption on your part not seeing a sample schedule, or connections.

More trains, even with increased ridership, would likely mean greater loses and thus the need for more taxpayer as opposed to user money to keep the trains running.

I don't get that. Do we scrap the NEC account too many riders? Or reduce it to one round trip a day?


I do believe that communter rail is useful under the right circunstances of population distribution and density.

Regional rail such as being developed in California may have it's place too.

[red]But if you want to go 501 miles, ya better drive, or stay home!

As I have posted in other threads, sourse Victoria Transportation Policy Institute www.vtpi.org (which by the way not a pro-automobile site), the subsidy per passenger mile for rail is higher than the cost per vehicle mile for the automobile.

[red]Bully for Victoria's Secret.

Mitch

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

Has anyone yet realized that Amtrak is operated using 1930's logistics? Show me any other mode where passenger service is using 70 year old logistical operations. For that matter, show me any other mode where the federal government is providing passenger services.

The nation's proprietary closed access rail system is built, operated, and maintained to run mile long 10,000+ ton consists at an average speed of 25 mph. Passenger service, regardless of mode, needs to be fast, frequent, and flexible. Trying to mix passenger services in with today's U.S. rail system is like trying to mix oil and water. It is completely nonsensicle.

Without a high speed rail system, one in which door to door transit times can beat door to door highway times regardless of the distance, the idea of passenger rail is a no go.

Dave,
I'm with you on the high speed rail thing, as opposed to running passenger trains on freight railroads.

Our question may be one of symantics. In saving Amtrak are we asking for the "same-o same-o" or asking for proper funding that would take Amtrak, or a funded, non-private rail service to a new level?

My only "wise-guy" remark to your comments is the interstate highway idea is as old as the first streamliners in that it came from the German Autoban. Limited access highways were planned in Chicago before WW II.

Mitch

[Anonymous]

The federal tax dollar revenues fund new construction only, with either new highways or rebuilding old highways...... Not one red cent goes to maintenance...... Maintenance funds come from the state and local governments......

The feds have spent over $1 trillion building new federally signed/marked highways in the past 50 years...... Its amazing how Amtrak's critics could possibly suggest that $24 billion over the past 40 years have been a huge tax boondoggle..... less than a quarter of one percent of the funds spent on new highways.....

Frankly, if the feds had instituted a one cent sales tax to fund passenger rail, we would have the best passenger rail network in the world, far surpassing the Europeans..... With a $7 trillion gross national product, a one cent sales tax would generate up to $70 billion a year to fund a national passenger railroad...... More than enough to build a new HSR network from New York City to Chicago, Washington DC to Miami, and from Chicago and Miami's corridors to Texas, a state with over 22 million people living in it.....not to mention a corridor in California linking northern and southern California..... IN ONE YEAR!

[jeaton]

In the category of be careful what you wish for. For those who wi***hat Amtrak will go away, you may also want to wi***hat you will not live long after your driver's license is not renewed because of disabilities brought on by old age.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone yet realized that Amtrak is operated using 1930's logistics? Show me any other mode where passenger service is using 70 year old logistical operations. For that matter, show me any other mode where the federal government is providing passenger services.

The nation's proprietary closed access rail system is built, operated, and maintained to run mile long 10,000+ ton consists at an average speed of 25 mph. Passenger service, regardless of mode, needs to be fast, frequent, and flexible. Trying to mix passenger services in with today's U.S. rail system is like trying to mix oil and water. It is completely nonsensicle.

Without a high speed rail system, one in which door to door transit times can beat door to door highway times regardless of the distance, the idea of passenger rail is a no go.